


Godless Hours

by EllaStorm



Category: Will (TV 2017)
Genre: Action & Romance, And Kit Is Very Very Exhausted With Him, Atheism, Banter, Espionage, Falling In Love, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Poetry, Post-Season/Series 01, Religious Guilt, Will Is Absolutely The Wrong Man For This Whole Espionage Thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-03-05 14:26:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18830509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllaStorm/pseuds/EllaStorm
Summary: On his quest for inspiration for his latest play Will stumbles headlong into a top-secret espionage mission that involves – of all people – Will’s rival poet and not-so-rival co-writer Christopher Marlowe. Things get pretty dangerous pretty fast…in more ways than one.





	Godless Hours

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SandraMorningstar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandraMorningstar/gifts).



> This is a Birthday Gift to my wonderful friend @SandraMorningstar, who originally wished for some angsty, tortured Will/Kit H/C, but told me she would also TOTALLY be on board with an action-y chase scene that involves Will and Kit running through the streets of London in an Elizabethan-espionage-film-kind-of-manner and go crazy on the adrenaline. 
> 
> I chose the latter, because it sounded like a ton of fun to write – which, incidentally, it absolutely was.
> 
> I really, really, REALLY hope you like this little story, my dear Sandra! I wish the happiest of birthdays to you :*
> 
> (Should you find a reference to Henry VI here you’re very welcome to keep it.)

Will was exhausted by the time he reached _The Blazing Log_ – and when he saw what the place looked like, he was less than impressed. This wasn’t exactly the best part of London to begin with, and the skewness of the low wooden roof, coupled with the distinct odour of human waste that suffused the entire street did very little to fill Will with confidence.  

On the other hand, it had taken him an ungodly amount of time to find this place, and he certainly wasn’t going to leg it after he’d made it this far.

Will wouldn’t be here, anyway, if it wasn’t important – but, unfortunately, he’d promised Burbage another portion of _Henry VI Part 2_ first thing tomorrow morning and he couldn’t seem to get the monologue of the Duchess of Gloucester right. Which was, honestly, mostly due to the fact that it had been _Kit Marlowe_ who had constructed her character in the first place, filled it with life and dialogue, and added a whiff of scandal, that Will couldn’t reproduce. He needed advice. Or, better yet, he needed _lines._ And it just so happened that the only person who would be able to provide them was, at least according to Ned’s information, sitting inside this mouldy tavern, and – as far as Will guessed – getting drunk on cheap ale and flirting with serving boys.

The thought sent a heated sting of jealousy through Will’s insides, that he chose to ignore. What a stupid notion. Kit might be an incorrigible sodomite, but Will absolutely wasn’t. The evidence spoke for him: He was a good catholic, married to a loving wife, the father of four children and an avid reader of the bible to boot.

Yes, there had been…exceptions. Exceptions like Alice, who he still couldn’t think about without a gruelling mixture of pain and guilt rearing its head inside his stomach. And, yes, Kit had kissed him once, but it had been against Will’s will, and, more importantly, it hadn’t been _pleasant_.

For the most part.

Well…Kit’s lips were undoubtedly…capable, and his hair looked rather becoming in the right light, golden like a crown and soft like silk, and when he was in a good mood he bubbled over with wit and laughter, which was rather intoxicating to witness. However, these were all observations any playwright in Will’s place would make. Kit was an alluring personality, after all. But it certainly wasn’t like Will _fancied_ him.   

With a straightening of his back and a last look at the battered wooden sign over the door he entered the tavern.

The smells around him changed – not necessarily for the better; it was simply that the odour of swill and old fat now covered the stink of excrements in a thick layer. The place was well-filled, all tables occupied; and the toothless man behind the counter eyed Will suspiciously, as he stood – still half in the doorway – looking around the pub for a golden shock of hair.

He couldn’t find it. Neither on second, nor on third glance.

Wonderful.

So Ned, who was supposed to know _everything,_ had given him the wrong address. And Will would have to walk all the way back through town and find out where Kit _really_ was. Or – worse – finish the remaining lines of the monologue by himself.

“Are ya lookin’ for someone, boy?” the toothless landlord shouted over the ambience of clinking jugs and laughing punters.

It certainly couldn’t hurt to ask.

“Yes. I’m looking for Christopher Marlowe. I was told he would be here tonight?”

He hadn’t quite expected the reaction he got. The man stood perfectly still for a moment, before he asked – so quietly that Will almost couldn’t understand him over the noise: “You know him?”

“Yes, he’s a…” _Friend_ deemed him the wrong word. “…a fellow.”

“A fella’? Might I ask ye who _you_ are, then?”

“Shakespeare. I’m a writer. Of plays.”

The man behind the counter didn’t look like he’d received the answer he’d expected, and Will became more confused by the second.

“So, is Kit…is Marlowe in the house?” he asked, rather gingerly.

The landlord smiled.

It was a smile Will didn’t like, and not only because it revealed the more rotting parts of the man’s oral cavity. It looked – vulpine. And Will had the terrible feeling that he might have said too much, though he couldn’t put his finger on exactly what that _too much_ had been.

“Give me a moment, Master Shakespeare.”

With that said, the landlord disappeared through a narrow door into a backroom; and when the lock snapped shut behind him, the bad feeling in Will’s guts started spreading to his hands and feet, icy, prickling and impossible to ignore. This man – this place…Will didn’t know what it was, but it felt like he _really_ shouldn’t be here any longer. Like he should run as fast and as far as his feet would carry him.

Right now.

_Nonsense_.

The man had most likely only left through the back to get Kit, everything was in perfect order, and Will was panicking for absolutely no rea-

A strong hand grabbed his arm from behind, and Will’s heart almost stopped.

“Are you serious, William?”

It was Kit’s voice, and relief flooded Will’s stomach. He tried to turn around to look him in the face, but Kit didn’t let him.

“Kit! I was just…”  
“Shut your mouth and come with me. Now.” The words tolerated no dissent, and Will, baffled, let himself be dragged out of the tavern. Kit started walking down the street, his hand still clamping Will’s arm too hard, his tempo getting brisker by the step.

“What…where are we going?” Will tried to free himself from Kit’s grip, or slow him down at the very least, but it was to no avail – the bony fingers around his arm didn’t let up for a second and neither did Kit’s pace. From the side Will finally got a few small glimpses of him. Kit was wearing a heavy cape with a hood that he’d drawn deeply into his face, and clothes he would otherwise not have been caught _dead_ in, brown, ragged excuses for trousers and a shirt; which served to explain why Will hadn’t found him among the people in the tavern, his most distinct features – hair, cheekbones and style – covered up beyond all recognition.

“Kit, will you explain yourself to me?” Will demanded, well-nigh stumbling over his tongue and his feet at the same time.

“Only if _you_ explain to _me_ what you are doing at this time of night in this part of town.”

“I was looking for you.”  
Kit gave an irritated huff. “Who told you where to find me?”

They were almost running by now, through streets Will had never seen by the light of day, never mind the dead of night, but that Kit seemed to know by heart. Which was…odd, really.

“Ned,” Will retorted, in hopes that if he gave a few answers, Kit might be a little more forthcoming with his own information.

“I told him not to tell _anyone_ where I was going. The sly bugger should stop putting his nose where it doesn’t belong, or it’ll be cut off for him one day.”

Will was shocked at the brutal choice of words, and while his breathing became increasingly faster in order to keep up with the legwork Kit was making him do, it slowly dawned on him that this wasn’t one of Kit’s games. This was deadly serious, and it scared Will; even more so, when Kit suddenly pulled him into a narrow alleyway, pressed them both up against the stone wall of a house and gestured him to keep quiet.

That was when Will heard it.

Steps. Running steps. More than one person, drawing nearer by the second. Will pressed his body closer to Kit’s, instinctively seeking a security that wasn’t there. The fear in his chest folded iron claws around his heart that beat wildly and desperately against the constraints, to very little avail.

Then the steps stopped. Right outside the alleyway. And Will was sure he was going to die. Here, and now, in the middle of London on a night that had robbed him of all sharp-sightedness he’d thought he possessed.

“Oh, swive ‘em! How’re we ever goin’ to find ‘em. They run quicker than rabbits, I tell ‘ye.”  
It was the voice of the toothless landlord.

Another voice responded. A distinguished voice – far too distinguished to be talking to the man it was talking to.

“What about the other one? Shakespeare, you said, was his name?”

Will felt a shudder run through him, and Kit must have felt it, too, because suddenly there was a hand in Will’s, warm, clutching his fingers, anchoring him to the wall.

“Aye. I don’t know if he’s in the game. If he is, he is nay very good at it.”

“Keep an eye out for him. And if you find him, bring him to me. He’s a friend of Christopher, and he might know things we don’t.”

“Ye want me to keep searchin’?” The voice of the landlord sounded pleading.

“No. Let it be for tonight. We have time. The Crown doesn’t.”

With that, the steps started up again, walking in the opposite direction. Will listened to their reverberations on the walls around them, until they died away in the distance.

What finally came out of his mouth when he dared use it again wasn’t much more than a rough whisper. “Who are they? Why were they following us? What do they want from me? And _why,_ on God’s earth, did he call you _Christopher_?” There was a small tremble to his words, but his eyes found Kit’s in the moon-cleaved dark, and he put as much force into his gaze as possible.

Kit looked at him for a moment, expressionless, and then rolled his eyes, as if Will had just pitched him a line he considered subpar. When he spoke, however, his tone of voice was entirely serious, with a thread of aggression running through it.

“ _They_ are a bunch of noblemen embezzling money that rightfully belongs to the Crown to support a coup against Her Majesty, the Queen. They were following us, because _you_ barged in on me, _spying on them,_ and blew my cover. And now they’d love to have a few bits and pieces of information about me, _the man who is spying on them,_ by you, the man who doesn’t have _any instincts of self-preservation whatsoever_ ; because you have, my dear William, qualified yourself as the perfect target tonight. And _he’s_ calling me Christopher, because I fucked him once. To my personal chagrin, I was played.”

Will stared at him, trying to process what he had just heard.

“You’re…you’re a _spy_?”

“Yes. And I’d have to kill you for knowing it.” Kit’s eyes were blue and sharp like daggers in the moonlight, and Will swallowed hard. The last time he’d felt threatened by Kit had been a long time ago, but he remembered it quite vividly now. It was like being eye in eye with a viper that could strike at any moment and sink its venomous fangs into your cheek.

All of a sudden Kit smiled, however, and the threat left his eyes. “But since we are sitting in the same boat tonight, as it happens, I don’t think that will be necessary.” He raised one quizzical brow. “Even though it would make my life a lot less dangerous, if you were to keep your mouth shut about this.”

“I will,” Will promised, quickly, relief colouring his voice. “Besides, I think that would make _my_ life less dangerous, too.”

“Hm. Maybe we’ll make a spy of you yet.”

Will chuckled, despite himself. “But you heard the man, Kit. _If he’s in it, he’s nay very good at it._ I don’t think I qualify, if a toothless, witless pub-keeper can say that about me and be utterly _right_.”

Kit gave a quiet, honest laugh. “On second thought, stick to writing plays.”

“Speaking of plays – that was why I needed to see you tonight in the first place. I’m delivering another section of _Henry VI_ to Burbage tomorrow, and I can’t get the _swiving_ Duchess right. There’s one part of her monologue…that I simply can’t find the words for. _Her_ words.”

Kit let his head fall back against the wall. With the movement his hood slipped off, revealing the pale shimmer of his hair to the moonlight. On his lips lay a regretful smile. “Leave it to you to get us in life-threatening trouble because of a _play_. Goes to show where your priorities lie, William.”

“No, but really, Kit. The part where she speaks: _Trow’st thou that e’er I’ll look upon this world, or count them happy that enjoy the sun?_ And then…I don’t know. She wants to revel in the darkness. That’s what you saw in her. I need an antithesis to the _sun,_ before she jumps to the next point she’s making. However-“

“ _No; dark shall be my light and night my day; to think upon my riches…my riches…_ uh” Kit stopped, contemplating, but Will felt a surge of excitement at the beginning he had made.

“ _…and night my day; to think upon my –_ not _riches_ but _– my pomp shall be…”_

_“…my Hell,”_ Kit finished.

And there it was, clear as day between them: The line Will had been searching for for almost seven hours.

“You’re a genius, Kit,” it broke out of him.

Kit smiled. “I know.”

Laughter slipped over Will’s lips, loud and freeing and _stupid,_ since those who had followed them might still hear them; and Kit seemed to think so, too: Before Will knew what was happening, he had pushed him up against the wall and put a hand over his mouth to stifle the sound.

“Shhhh,” Kit made, sternly, but his eyes were smiling, betraying his tone of voice.

After a while Will’s laughter died down, and he became aware of how very close Kit stood now, his body pressed to Will’s from chest to…crotch, really; and something hot coiled in his stomach, something he couldn’t control, riding on the wings of the knowledge that he had survived, really, truly _survived._

“Are you done laughing?”

Will nodded and Kit slipped his hand off his mouth. He didn’t, however, move back, keeping the sharp lines of his body moulded to Will’s.

“What a strange night it is, that first puts you in harm’s way, then delivers you to poetry and laughter,” Kit mused, a small grin playing on his lips.

“Strange,” Will agreed. He was out of breath again, this time for no very good reason.

“Shall we make it stranger yet?” Kit asked.

Will didn’t answer, just looked at him, as the space between them shrank, and then Kit’s lips were on his, hot in the cool night air, and Will kissed him back, kissed him right through the guilt that was already rising inside him – he’d find a way to justify this, he would, but not now, not soon. _Later_.

They kissed for a while, hands tangling in hair, bodies shifting against each other, and a moan was forced over Will’s lips, when Kit’s thigh brushed the place where he had hardened, considerably, in his trousers.

“Do you want me to touch you?” Kit asked, a low rumble against Will’s lower lip; and Will took a sharp breath.

“Aren’t you touching me?” he managed, layers of mute desire in the way of clear thought.

“Not the way I would like to,” Kit retorted, a smile in his voice.

Will – who was slowly but surely going out of his mind, just like this – could hardly suppress another moan. “For the love of God, yes. Do it.”

Kit pushed his forehead to Will’s, fumbling for the ties on his breeches. “God has nothing to do with this, Will,” he whispered. “It’s only us.”

His hand was on Will’s length a moment later, cool, almost soothing, and Will gave a sob that Kit took from his lips with a languid kiss. He was breathing fast, too, small sounds in the back of his throat, and Will knew he wasn’t going to last; not with Kit seeping into his body like light-fingered, fair-haired opium.

“I think I might die, Kit,” he said between kisses, not quite knowing what he was saying, yet knowing perfectly well; and Kit groaned, quietly, and kissed him deeper, not to defy what he had told him, Will realised, but to confirm it. Kit’s own hardness was insistently pushing against Will’s hip now, still caught in Kit’s trousers, and Will thought that he should probably do something about that, for courtesy’s sake.

It never came to it, though, because mere moments later Will stumbled over the edge, lost, startled, and somehow Kit must have been there with him – when Will came to, the hardness at his hip had given way to heat and wetness; and Will found himself surprisingly malcontent. He would have liked to touch Kit, too, he realised.

Would have loved to, in fact.

“Did you, Will?” Kit asked into the silence between them. “Die?”

Will wound his arms around Kit’s shoulders and pulled him closer still, even though that was nigh-impossible, rested his forehead against Kit’s and closed his eyes. He wanted this moment to last. Just a little longer, before he had to justify to himself and the world and God what they had done here.

“Almost.”

He could feel Kit’s smile between them. “ _Almost_? I will have to try harder in the future.”

A rush of warmth went through Will’s insides. _The future._ And then he remembered that all that lay in his future were heaps of guilt and the search for forgiveness. He couldn’t to do this again with Kit. Ever. Which, incidentally, was exactly what he’d thought after the first time with Alice…

Still. He had to try. Keep trying.

He owed God that.

It seemed like Kit had read his thoughts.

“Don’t think of God yet, Will. I’d like to have you for myself a little longer.”

“I’m trying,” Will promised, Kit’s breath on his lips. “I’m trying.”


End file.
